2023-04-20 09:38:07
The Kremlin believes that the issue of strategic stability should be discussed with France and Great Britain, as well, since their nuclear arsenals are “de facto under the control of the United States.” So the presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov commented on the words of the representative of the French Foreign Ministry, Anne-Clair Legendre, who in an interview with Kommersant stated regarding the “significant disproportion” of the nuclear arsenals of Paris and the two largest nuclear powers.
“From our point of view, of course, the nuclear arsenals of both France and Great Britain, one can say that they are de facto under the control of the United States. Therefore, if we talk to America, then talking without taking into account these two arsenals, well, it makes absolutely no sense. This is a conceptual approach to what is happening,” the Kremlin spokesman said during a press call. He explained that, in fact, France and Great Britain “are a single integral system of NATO, and since … the bloc is de facto under the control of the United States, it is a single whole.”
Ms. Legendre believes that France can only take part in negotiations on strategic arms control if the gap between France’s arsenals and those of the two major nuclear powers is significantly reduced. “As you know, we are very far from fulfilling this condition,” she said in an interview with Kommersant.
President Vladimir Putin announced the suspension of Russia’s participation in the Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START) in February. Russia believes that it is necessary to perceive the nuclear potentials of the United States, Great Britain and France “as a whole” and take this into account in the process of limiting and reducing nuclear weapons.
Read the full interview in the material “Kommersant” “We are seeing a significant disproportion between the potential of the two largest nuclear powers and the potential of France.”
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